by Alison Weir
Once Elizabeth’s resolve not to restore Mary became known in Denmark, Bothwell lost his value as a political prisoner, and King Frederick withdrew his privileges. With them went Bothwell’s hopes of ever regaining his freedom.
Mar died suddenly, “regretted by many,” on 28 October 1572. According to Melville, he became violently ill after dining with Morton at Dalkeith. “Some of his friends and the vulgar suspected he had gotten wrong at his banquet.”33
A month later, on 24 November, the day Knox died urging Elizabeth “to apply the axe to the root of evil,”34Morton was elected Regent of Scotland, being the fourth man to hold the office since Mary’s deposition. Morton was one of Mary’s most implacable enemies, and he was determined to crush her party; he was to prove an effective, if ruthless and avaricious, regent, and restored relatively stable rule to Scotland whilst maintaining very friendly relations with Elizabeth. Argyll had now established his loyalty to the Lords, and was made Lord High Chancellor by Morton; he died in 1574. Balfour also came to terms with the new Regent, professed the Protestant religion and obtained the reversal of his forfeiture.35 However, he proved something of an embarrassment to Morton, for many were offended that he “should enjoy the benefit of pacification,”36so in 1573 he went to France and Spain, where he tried to raise funds and support for the restoration of the Catholic faith in Scotland.
Since Lennox’s death, Lady Lennox had undergone a change of heart towards Mary. She no longer believed her guilty of Darnley’s murder. Proof of this may be found in a letter from Mary to Archbishop Beaton, dated May 1578, in which Mary states that “this good lady was, thanks to God, in very good correspondence with me these five or six years bygone,” which places the reconciliation around 1572/3. Mary revealed that Lady Lennox had confessed to me, by sundry letters under her hand, which I carefully preserve, the injury she did me by unjust pursuits which she allowed to go out against me in her name, through bad information, but principally, she said, through the express orders of the Queen of England and the persuasion of her Council, who also took much solicitude that she and I might never come to good understanding together. But how soon she came to know of my innocence, she desisted from any further pursuit against me; nay, went so far as to refuse her consent to anything they should act against me in her name.37
We do not know how Lady Lennox came to be convinced of Mary’s innocence, but it is easy to believe that she had been the tool of Elizabeth and her Council. Therefore, she must have had sound reasons for resisting their demands that she continue to spread slanders about Mary.
Under Morton, the last bastions of Marian resistance were destroyed. Blackness Castle, which had been held by Lord Claude Hamilton for a year, fell to the Regent on 10 February 1573. Until now, Chatelherault had remained faithful to the Queen’s cause, but on 23 February, at the entreaty of Elizabeth, he and the rest of the Hamiltons, along with Huntly, were reconciled to Morton at what became known as the Pacification of Perth. This would lead shortly to the final collapse of Mary’s cause in Scotland and the end of the civil war. According to the terms of the Pacification, the lands of the Hamiltons and Gordons were restored, and Archbishop Hamilton was posthumously rehabilitated. Chatelherault retired to Hamilton and died there on 22 January 1575. Huntly died the following year.
Morton was now free to concentrate his efforts on taking Edinburgh Castle, which was the only fortress left in the hands of Mary’s supporters. But Grange had so far successfully resisted his besiegers. In April, at Morton’s invitation, an English army led by Sir William Drury arrived in Edinburgh with its siege guns to boost the Regent’s forces. On 29 May, after thirteen days of massive bombardment that had virtually reduced it to ruins, the once-mighty stronghold fell to Morton, and Mary’s party was finally crushed. Even Seton made his peace with the Regent, and was soon afterwards admitted to the Privy Council.
Grange, Maitland and Lord Home were taken prisoner. Grange was hanged on 3 August at the Mercat Cross.38Home was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle and died there, still a captive, on 11 August 1575. Maitland, who was so ill that he had been carried down to the vaults during the siege, was imprisoned at Leith,39 and would no doubt have met the same fate as Grange had he not either died from a stroke on 8 or 9 June, or taken his own life by poison: Melville claimed that he had committed suicide “after the old Roman fashion.” Morton had his decomposing body brought to trial in its coffin so that he could be condemned as a traitor, an outrage that provoked angry protests from Elizabeth. At her intercession, Morton had the body decently buried.
Shrewsbury reported that, after hearing of Maitland’s death, Mary made “little show of grief, and yet it nips her near.”40 Perhaps she had come to realise that Maitland had, in his latter years, been a true friend to her.
Bothwell was first reported to be mad in March 1573. “A man lately out of Sweden reported that the Earl Bothwell was stark mad and had long been so.”41 It was probably for this reason that, on 16 June that year, Frederick had him transferred to close captivity in “a much worse prison,” the formidable Dragsholm Castle.42 In the sixteenth century, insanity was not understood and lunatics were usually kept under lock and key, often in rigorous conditions. Bothwell was now of little use to Frederick, so his immurement had no political consequence.
Dragsholm was a grim thirteenth-century Romanesque fortress situated on the north-west coast of Zealand: in Bothwell’s time, the sea lapped its 8-foot-thick walls, but has since receded. The castle was often used as a state prison, many of its inmates being lodged in rooms in the great north-eastern tower.43Bothwell may have been kept there, but once he disappeared behind the walls of Dragsholm, very little information about him seeped out. Herries, whose source is unknown, wrote: “The King of Denmark cast him in a loathsome prison, where none had access to him, but only those that carried him such scurvy meat and drink as was allowed, which was given in at a little window.” That he was badly treated is confirmed by a French envoy, M. de Thou, who said he had been “thrust into the severest confinement at Dragsholm.” Spottiswoode described it as “a vile and loathsome prison,” and speaks of Bothwell “falling in a frenzy,” which, if he were not obliviously insane already, would surely have been provoked by the rigours of his incarceration, which would have been unbearable for such an active and intelligent man.
In June 1574, Morton made a final attempt to have Bothwell extradited,44 as well as the mercenary, John Clerk, who had also been imprisoned at Dragsholm for making a nuisance of himself. But Frederick refused to let either man go.
Late in 1573, the Regent’s spies tracked down and arrested Black Ormiston, who was tried and sentenced to death. On 13 December, before he left his prison in Edinburgh Castle for the scaffold, he made a formal confession of his part in Darnley’s murder to John Brand, Minister of the Canongate Kirk. Some writers believe that Ormiston’s confession is unreliable as evidence, and in some respects this is almost certainly true, for it incorporates glaring errors that make it obvious that Brand was doing his poor best to keep to the official version of events, yet it nevertheless frequently manages to contradict the depositions of Hay, Hepburn, Powrie, Dalgleish and Paris. Seemingly, both Ormiston and Brand had become confused with the passage of time. However, the confession contains no attempt to incriminate the Queen: Ormiston declared that he had never spoken with her about the murder and that when, afterwards, he told her that people were saying he had been present at the scene, she said nothing.45 If she knew nothing, she would have been unable to comment. It seems, moreover, that Brand was more concerned to extract information that would incriminate Maitland, who was dead, and Balfour, who had become disaffected from the Regent. Ormiston was executed later that day.
In December 1573, Queen Elizabeth appointed Sir Francis Walsingham her chief Secretary of State in place of Cecil, who had been made Lord Treasurer. Walsingham was a Puritan and an implacable enemy of the Queen of Scots, whom he called “that bosom serpent,” and he would from now on make it his mission in li
fe to bring her to justice. To this end, he set up an efficient and powerful network of spies in order to counteract the Catholic plots that centred upon Mary.
By 1574, Jesuit seminary priests were infiltrating England, their purpose being to undermine Elizabeth’s rule and the Anglican Church, and to work under cover for the re-establishment of the Catholic faith. Soon, there were rumours that Philip of Spain was planning to invade England with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth and replacing her with Mary, rumours that would alarmingly prove not to be unfounded.
In such a climate, anyone showing themselves sympathetic to Mary’s cause was automatically under suspicion. In September 1574, Lady Lennox was asked by Elizabeth if the rumours of her reconciliation with Mary were true, but she prudently denied it, and wrote to Cecil, now Lord Burghley, I asked Her Majesty if she could think so, for I was made of flesh and blood, and could never forget the murder of my child; and she said nay, by her faith, she could not think that ever I could forget it, for if I would, I were a devil.46
On 4 November 1575, after yet another spell in the Tower, this time for marrying off her son Lennox without the Queen’s permission,47 Lady Lennox wrote to Mary the letter that is proof of their reconciliation and the ongoing correspondence between them:
It may please Your Majesty, I have received your token, both by your letter and other ways, much to my comfort, especially perceiving that most zealous care Your Majesty hath of our sweet and peerless jewel in Scotland [James]; I have been no less fearful and careful as Your Majesty of him, that the wicked Governor [Morton] should not have power to do ill to his person . . . I beseech Your Majesty, fear not, but trust in God that all shall be well; the treachery of your traitors is known better than before. I shall always play my part to Your Majesty’s content, willing God, so as [He] may tend to both our comforts. And now must I yield to Your Majesty my most humble thanks for your good remembrances. Almighty God grant to Your Majesty long and happy life. Your Majesty’s most humble and loving mother and aunt, M.L.48
It is evident from this letter that Lady Lennox had become convinced of the guilt of Morton and his colleagues, hence her fears for James’s safety. Unfortunately, the letter never reached Mary: it was intercepted by spies and sent to Cecil.
That same month, Mary published her Will, in which she bequeathed her claim to the English succession in turn to Elizabeth, then young Lennox, and the rights to the earldom of Angus to Lady Lennox, in defiance of Morton’s claim, which she declared had been invalidated by “his secret understanding with our enemies and rebels that made the enterprise against [Darnley’s] life, and also took up arms and bore banners displayed against me.”49 Lennox died in April 1576, leaving his claim to the throne to his infant daughter, Arbella Stuart, but the Scottish Parliament refused to allow her to inherit her father’s title and lands, arguing that these should pass by right to Darnley’s heir, James VI. After the death of her only surviving son, Lady Lennox suffered a “languishing decline.”50
In 1575, Mary made another attempt to have her marriage to Bothwell annulled, on the grounds that he had not been properly divorced from his first wife, and that he had taken Mary by force. Leslie, recently released from the Tower, was sent to Rome to present evidence in support of her suit.51 In August 1576, several depositions from key witnesses were transcribed in Paris.52 This evidence is still in the Vatican Library, but there is no record of an annulment having been granted.
This was perhaps because, from late 1575 onwards, there were several false reports of Bothwell’s death. On 24 November, Cecil wrote: “There came news out of Denmark that the Earl Bothwell and Captain Clerk were dead in prison. Howbeit, since that, the death of Captain Clerk is confirmed, and that Bothwell is but great swollen and not dead.”53
But the rumours persisted—Bothwell was again reported dead late in 1577—and it was also said that, prior to 1573, the ailing Earl, believing himself to be on his deathbed, had made a written testament in which he confessed that he had killed Darnley with the connivance of Moray, Maitland and Morton, and “testified by his soul[’s] salvation to [Mary’s] innocence.” Hearing these rumours, Mary naturally desired to gain possession of this testament, and on 1 June 1576, wrote to Archbishop Beaton asking him to make inquiries on her behalf. At the end of July, Beaton regretfully informed her that, although he had sent a courier to Denmark to find out more, it would prove too expensive (probably in bribes to courtiers, officials and gaolers) to investigate the matter. On 6 January 1577, Mary informed Beaton that Frederick had sent a copy of the testament to Elizabeth, who naturally kept it secret.
Mary and Nau continued to believe in the testament’s authenticity, but it can now be established from the abstracts that are extant that, if it existed at all, it was a forgery. Two of those listed as witnesses were already dead when they were supposed to have signed it, and it contains far-fetched allegations that Grange, Boyd and Lord Robert Stewart were among the murderers. It was probably the work of a well-meaning but misguided supporter of the Queen, who was zealous to proclaim her innocence.
On 9 March 1578, Lady Lennox died, having been seized with violent pains only hours after dining with Leicester. There was talk that he had poisoned her, but unfounded popular rumour credited him with the deaths of several other people, among them his first wife: several unproven allegations appear in a scurrilous tract entitled Leicester’s Commonwealth, which was published in 1584. Lady Lennox had been ailing for some time, and it has been claimed that Leicester would have had no motive for killing her.54That is not quite true. Leicester was staunchly loyal to Elizabeth, and it was well known in court circles that Lady Lennox, that inveterate intriguer, was in regular correspondence with Mary, which would certainly have aroused suspicions and anxieties in Elizabeth. After the Countess’s death, Leicester took her steward, Thomas Fowler, into his service, probably in order to gain access to her papers, of which Fowler apparently had custody. Leicester may have believed that among those papers was to be found the evidence for Lady Lennox’s change of heart towards Mary, which, if it got into the wrong hands and were made public, could seriously compromise Elizabeth’s policy of keeping Mary in custody. So there were good reasons for murdering Lady Lennox, even though it can never be certain that Leicester did so.
The Countess was buried in Westminster Abbey in a splendid tomb surmounted by her painted effigy and adorned with kneeling figures of her eight children. The statue of Darnley is distinguished by a crown suspended above the head and an ermine mantle, denoting his royal but uncrowned status. Her son Lennox was interred with her.
Three days after Lady Lennox’s death, Atholl and the new Earl of Argyll brought off a coup against their old enemy, Morton, and forced him to resign from the Regency. Having gained control of the eleven-year-old James VI, they had him declare himself of age. Real power, however, would remain in the hands of a regency Council headed by Atholl, who was appointed Chancellor of Scotland on 29 March. But Morton had no intention of relinquishing power. At the beginning of June, he effected a counter-coup and regained control of the King and the Regency, conceding that Atholl and Argyll should assist him in the government. When Atholl died unexpectedly, in April 1579, Morton was suspected of poisoning him, although this was never proved.
At Dragsholm, the crazed Bothwell had been held in increasingly vile conditions. It is often stated that he was chained to a pillar in such a way that he was unable to stand upright, but there is no contemporary evidence for this allegation, which rests on a local tradition that was related to the Earl’s biographer, Gore-Browne, when he visited Dragsholm in 1935.55 But many of Bothwell’s contemporaries testify to his insanity, notably Herries, Buchanan, Melville, the French envoy de Thou, and Maitland’s brother John, who, during a visit to Copenhagen in 1590, heard how Bothwell had become “distracted of his wits or senses.” Herries also says that the Earl was “overgrown with hair and filth.” Buchanan states that he “was driven mad by the filth and other discomforts of his dungeon.” The cess
ation of entries relating to expenses for Bothwell in the castle accounts in the spring of 1576 gives credence to these reports.
In the end, this cruel treatment claimed its victim. Bothwell “died miserably”56on 14 April 1578. What was almost certainly his body was embalmed and placed in an oak coffin and buried beneath the nave of Faarvejle Church, twenty miles from Dragsholm. In 1858, the coffin was opened and the body found to be in a good state of preservation, having been naturally mummified by the salty sea air; the head had become detached, and lay below the shoulder; it was taken away and placed on a writing table in the castle for a time. Thereafter, the mummy was displayed under glass in a shallow crypt until 1970, when, at the instigation of the future Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, it was buried in Riis’s Chapel, an annexe to the church. Although there is no inscription on the coffin, this body was obviously that of a nobleman, since it rested on a white satin cushion and was shrouded in fine linen and silks, so it is unlikely to have been that of Captain Clerk, as has been suggested.57 The body measured about 5 feet 6 inches long; in the nineteenth century there were traces of red and silver hair on the skull, and in 1935 Gore-Browne observed a faint white scar on the temple, probably the result of the wound dealt by Jock Elliott in October 1566. In 1976, a move to have the body returned to Scotland ended in failure.58
There is no record of Mary’s reaction to the death of Bothwell. In 1580, in liaison with the Spanish ambassador in London, she embarked on a fresh round of dangerous plotting against Elizabeth. That year, Pope Gregory XIII ruled that whoever sent the English Queen out of the world “with the pious intention of doing God service, not only does not sin, but gains merit.” In Mary’s eyes, this would have justified all her future conspiracies against Elizabeth.